Search

If one simply analyzes the election of 2012, it’s quite obvious the GOP has an imaging problem; they have lost much of their support due to the changing demographics of 21st century America. I believe February, 2013 was unusually rich with incidents which signal the growing irrelevance of the Grand Old Party, truly an epic month chock full of the increasingly frequent bloopers that illustrate the true character of Republicans.

Trying to gather a manageable list of their latest blunders which purport their claim they are “trying to rebrand the party,” is quite a Herculean endeavor. John Brabender, Rick Santorum’s campaign manager believes their problem is merely in the context of perception, not actual platform. “The perception of our party is, number one, we fight for the rich more than we fight for anybody else. Number two, we fight for the big corporations. And number three, we`re obstructionists to everything.” We’ve got news for you John, this is reality.

The platform and policies the GOP favors have been deviating from the mainstream. The current reality is a dystopian nightmare where the fringe social, political and theocratic factions of the party have literally taken over the asylum. Stupid is actually a very nice way to describe the continued insanity that plagues Republicans nationwide. Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Governor (R) tried to sum it up.

One barely has to search for striking examples which make the word “stupid” seem like the understatement of the year. Psychotic, sociopathic and mendacious are far more apt characterizations of the party that is slowly becoming an embarrassment. The downward spiral began just after President Obama finished one of the most memorable State of the Union addresses and the GOP chose “rising star” Marco Rubio to give his rebuttal. The man they selected, a denier of man-made climate change science, a signer of the Norquist Pledge and a real “patriot” who voted against raising the debt ceiling , clearly represented a party uncomfortable with changing ethnic and social demographics. Most recently, on a trip to Israel, he wrongly identified Jerusalem as the capital merely to pander to extreme right-wing hard liners in both countries.

Former First Lady, Laura Bush came out in support of gay marriage in 2010. However, just this last week, she asked to have her name removed from a gay marriage ad. Once again, a prominent Republican drops the ball and abandons support of an issue which is only increasing in acceptance from the American people.

A GOP Missouri lawmaker shoots at a bill which would make it a felony to possess certain types of assault weapons. Their perversion of the second amendment continues. Watch the video below.

In Iowa (as well as The Dakotas and most Southern States), they are hell bent on criminalizing abortion in the most Draconian ways imaginable. By enacting personhood statutes, Iowa Republicans have introduced a bill that redefines murder to include knowingly “killing” a fertilized egg. This law would lead to the imprisonment of women who have abortions (currently, approximately one-third of women in the U.S. will have an abortion in their lifetime) as well as women who use certain types of birth control that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.

Not to be outdone by their ineptitude on women’s and social issues, the GOP has a healthy degree of xenophobia, especially against any possible affiliation with the “great Satan,” Iran. Just linking Hezbollah or Hamas with an Obama nominee would make any Teabagger salivate, so it’s no wonder the intuitive folks at Breitbart.com fell for a joke by NY Daily News reporter Dan Friedman. He used a preposterous name like “Friends of Hamas” to sarcastically link Former Nebraska GOP Senator and DoD nominee Chuck Hagel with terrorist groups. Not only did these conservative “journalists” not fact check, they spread this fabrication around the right wing blogosphere. The absurdity went unnoticed and traveled all the way up through the highest ranks, even so far as duping Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mr. Friedman wrongly assumed everyone could see the obvious satire in his writing. Unfortunately it is a common practice to assign deductive reasoning skills to the fear-mongering, anti-education, anti-science and highly xenophobic members of the American Right.

Teabagging star Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx), the darling of fundamentalists in the Lone Star State, went so far as to link Hagel to Iran directly simply because the nation spoke favorably about a reasonable, non-hawkish defense department leader after so many years of preemptive American wars. This man not only looks like Eugene “Joe” McCarthy, he is already on a witch hunt only two months into his dreaded six year reign of terror. This extremist lunatic will prove to be a hot mess of problems for both America and his party. Naturally, that makes him a star.

Because McCarthyism worked so well the first time. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx)

I focus on Cruz because he is the quintessential obstructionist who embodies every abhorrent quality which will hasten the demise of the once powerful GOP. A recent Salon piece by Steve Kornacki says it best: …conservatives’ appetite for Cruz shows that the GOP base’s animating spirit still hasn’t changed: Loud, aggressive and reflexive hostility to President Obama, the Democratic Party and any Republican who would dare contemplate compromise is still how “conservatism” is defined.

Fast forward to March 29, when the home run of all racial epithets was uttered by former GOP representative Don Young (Alaska). When asked about growing up on a Central California farm, he said, “My father had a ranch; we used to have 50-60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes, it takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine.” True, he was not trying to be overtly offensive, it simply eluded him he even said something that is incredibly bigoted because he grew up around that sort of offensive vernacular. He issued an apology stating that there is no place for that type of racial slur in this century. What’s most telling is his time frame of when racist comments are permissible. Was 1999 a time when you could insult an entire group of people without consequence? It appears even the 1950’s is too avant-garde for Republicans and hiding their obvious disdain for minorities is a daunting task.

This legitimacy and relevancy problem only seems to worsen over time. In fact, a Pew Research Poll has concluded only 22% of Americans would label themselves Republican, most hiding behind the guise of the Independent label, for obvious reasons. I doubt the party will go the way of the Whigs, but the infighting between Teaparty hard-liners and so-called moderates violates Reagan’s “11th Commandment,” thou shalt never speak ill of a fellow Republican. I sure enjoy watching the mayhem and it may just expedite their ultimate defeat. I anticipate the 2014 midterms will exacerbate the Republican irrelevancy problems with massive defeats. These anti-government government workers have surely outworn their welcome and their incompetence is finally obvious to the majority of Americans.